E. Gesetzliches Lohnminimum. 
697 
That your petitioners have for a series of years suffered very great 
hardships by reduction of their wages. 
That such reduction of their wages hath been principally effectuated 
by the competition or rivalship of the master manufacturers, in paying 
various prices for the same kind of goods, whereby the skill and industry 
of your petitioners is sacrificed by a depreciation of the value of their labour. 
That your petitioners do not observe any abatement in the demand 
for goods, though they are reduced nearly one half the wages they have 
hitherto been paid; and such wages do not, in many cases, amount to 
more than 9 s. per week. 
That your petitioners have seen the advance of price in.other trades 
and branches of manufacture to correspond with the increased prices of 
provisions, while they have from the foregoing causes , together with the 
increased prices of house-rents, firing, and other necessaries attendant 
upon the manufacture, been rendered incapable of procuring a sufficient 
livelihood. 
That your petitioners are, and ever will be, ready to submit to any 
privations arising from national calamities, and with becoming fortitude 
to bear them; but they believe they have nothing to dread either from 
the arts or arms of foreigners, they therefore look up to the justice and 
wisdom of this Honourable House for redress, in the premises which 
they are ready to prove (if so permitted), either by themselves or counsel. 
That if a fair and equal regulation were adopted in the trade, and 
uniformity of prices established for weaving the various fabrics in the 
cotton manufacture, such manufacture would be rescued from its present 
sompetitors, and all concerned therein be much. benefited, 
Your petitioners, therefore, most humbly pray, that leave may be 
given to bring in a Bill to regulate, from time to time, agreeable to 
existing circumstances , the prices for weaving cotton cloth; such prices, 
eules and regulations, to be uniform and general for every species fabric 
and texture in the said manufacture, or to do herein as to the great 
wisdom of this Honourable House shall seem meet. 
And your Petitioners shall ever pray.“ 
Now the above petition and paper show exactly the principle of 
our petitions, and is it the sentiment of the trade in general. Now this 
is the cure mentioned in the last clause: „Your petitioners, therefore, 
most humbly pray, that leave may be given to bring in a Bill to regulate 
from time to time, agreeable to existing circumstances, the‘ prices for 
weaving cotton cloth; such prices, rules and regulations to be uniform 
and general for every species, fabrie and texture in the said manufacture, 
or to do herein as to the great wisdom of this Honourable House shall 
seem meet.“ 
Now this is the very spirit, and I might say the letter, of the peti- 
tions before the Committee. I have another decument here which shows